After spending two years helping WarnerMedia get subscription streaming service HBO Max off the ground, a veteran rep for a leading third-party tech company told Next TV Thursday that the media conglomerate's executives aren't the only ones feeling the disruptive turmoil of the latest WB transition — its vendors are feeling the effects, too.
In Culver City to meet with the just-christened Warner Bros. Discovery’s new management team, the sales rep described the atmosphere around the transition from exiting WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar's administration to a new one centered around Discovery chief executive David Zaslav as “chaotic.”
The rep told Next TV that he fully expects his company's services to be retained by Zaslav's team, but existing momentum established under Kilar's watch will be stalled, at least for now, as vendors adapt to new management philosophies and systems.
“It feels like a huge step back,” said the rep, who noted a general lack of familiarity with the Europe-entrenched Discovery. “No one really knows what to expect at this point.”
Certainly, this is just the perspective of one sales rep, but it does illustrate some level of frustration surrounding an operation that was far from broke, but is nonetheless getting fixed, anyway ... for the second time in 24 months. ■
